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I wasn’t going to mention this until
the “official” release of the book at the July 20th book signing,
but the print edition of Smoky Days and
Sleepless Nights is already up and available on Amazon.com and the Create
Space website. (It will be up as an e-book, but not until a bit later.)

If you’re not going to be around for
the 125th anniversary on July 20th, or if you want to
read it early and then bring it with you to be signed – or if you just don’t
care if it’s signed or not – you can order it from Create Space for $9.95, at:

If you want to save a buck, then
surprise: Amazon has already discounted it to $8.96. As soon as I have a chance
to set it up, print orders will be available through my website for those of
you who don’t live nearby, but want a signed copy. Shipping charges will apply
either way, but we’re trying to keep it affordable – and don’t forget this is a
fund raiser for the Albion Fire Department. The Amazon page for the book, which
includes your chance to take a look inside, is at:

A while back I saw some video
footage in which a car speeding down the interstate was hit by an airplane
tire.

Not a car tire. A big freaking
airliner tire, as big as the car itself, came barreling across the pavement and
right into the side of the car. The plane, as you might imagine, was right
behind the tire, but from what I could see the driver avoided the rest of the
major debris.

It got me thinking about last words.

As far as I know the driver of that
car survived, and could go on to tell the story as soon as he changed his
pants. If he had been killed, I doubt his last words would have been printable
in a family publication. In fact, most last words probably amount to some
variation of, “Oh, frack”. That’s a fine, descriptive science fiction curse
word, right up there with “Shazbot” … but the actual final word would have had only
four letters.

Every now and then, a person’s last
words are something to remember … for good reasons, or bad. They could be
ironic, such as John Adams’ last words: “Thomas Jefferson survives”.

This was ironic because Thomas
Jefferson passed away a few hours before. They didn’t have phones back then.
Can you imagine Adams’ reaction if they had? “What do you mean, he just died?
That Jefferson, always stealing the limelight. Sure, I was the second
President, but who got to write the Declaration? Who invented the portable
desk? I’ll bet they’ll give him a memorial, but me? Nooooo… and now he screwed
up my last words.”

And he would have said all that with
his last dying breath, which you have to admit is pretty impressive.

American Presidents often had
interesting last words. James Madison said, ‘I always talk better lying down.”
And then he lay down, and stopped talking.

Millard Fillmore’s were, “The
nourishment is palatable.” Okay, so maybe not so interesting, but evidence that the soup didn’t kill him.

Andrew Johnson: “I need no doctor. I
can overcome my troubles.” He was wrong.

Theodore Roosevelt, before his
lights went out? “Please put out the light.”

I suspect George Washington’s last
words were: “Don’t build the new capitol in a swamp! Nothing

good will ever
come out of it.” If only we’d listened.

Then there was Civil War General John
Sedgwick, whose last words were, “They couldn't hit an elephant at this
distance."

Unfortunately for him, they weren't shooting at an elephant.

The last words of most people is a
variation of either, “Oh, crap”, or “Hey, ya’ll, watch this!” In both cases the
words aren’t very memorable, although the actions often are.

So, what would my last words be?

I’d kind of prefer that the last
noise I make be a snore, as in I died in my sleep. Barring that it would be
nice to have something heroic: “Did I … *cough* … get them out in time?” Or, “I
had to save those puppies …”

Or something that would make
literary history, such as, “It was the best of times … until the turn of the
century”, or, “I should have written ‘Fifty Shades of Twilight Hunger Games’.”

Or at least something that ties it
up nicely, such as “It was a good life – I accomplished all my goals except for
climbing Mount Everest, but it was just too darn cold up there.”

Yeah – no.

My last words will be something I
wouldn’t want on my tombstone. Here’s a sampling of the possibilities:

“Don’t worry, I shut off the
electricity.”

“There’s plenty of room!”

“I think it’s out; let me take a look.”

“I can fix that.”

“I can make friends with any animal!”

“Does this look infected to you?”

I consider that last to be the least
likely, because if it is infected, I’ll have time later for my last words to
be:

“Guess I should have had that checked
out, huh?”

The lesson we should learn from this is not that we should consider carefully
our last words. No, it’s that we should just shut up and think before we light
that match, hit the gas, or go down into a dark basement when a serial killer’s
on the loose.

I’ve at least learned to stop saying
those predictors of certain doom: “What could possibly go wrong?” and its
cousin, “It could be worse”.

Interview just finished -- the plan is for it to be aired Monday at 6 p.m. on INC (That's the Fort Wayne news on channel 21, the ABC affiliate, and I believe the same news broadcast is on the NBC affiliate).

All my plans to sit up straight, keep my saggy chin up, and not talk stupid went straight out the window the moment the camera was turned on me. Just the same, it seemed to go fairly well, and maybe he can edit out most of the "ums" and "ahs".

We’re looking at a bit of a game
changer, as far as my schedule this week: Eric Olson of Indiana’s News Center
is coming over tomorrow at 10 a.m. to interview me about Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights. With a camera. He wants to film in
my office, where the magic happens.

The magic will be getting the
office to not look like it wasn’t just filled with a dump truck load of books,
electronics, paperwork, and assorted stuff.

I’ll let you know when the
interview will be up. Here’s their website:

The Hawk, WAWK at 95.5 FM and 1140 AM, plans to interview me
on Tuesday, July 2nd, at 9:30 a.m. It’ll be about the release of my
book, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A
Century or So With the Albion Fire Department, and its association with the
AFD’s 125th anniversary celebration on July 20th.

I DJ’d for a time at a different local radio station many
years ago, but otherwise haven’t had much contact with the industry except as a
listener. I don’t know whether the interview will be recorded and available
later, but it should be live streamed at the station’s website:

A while back
I was tested for allergies. It’s something that needles me still, in each arm,
once a week. During the follow-up meeting, the ear, nose, and throat doctor
informed me that my ears were clogged, my nose stuffed, and my throat raw. He
also asked how I’d been sleeping.

“How should
I know?” I asked him. “I was asleep.”

“He doesn’t
sleep very well,” my wife put in. “He’s terrible at it. No talent for sleeping
at all. However, he snores in the cutest little accents.”

So the doc
ordered a sleep study. Thanks, dear.

In her
defense, apparently the old trick of rolling me over to stop the snoring no
longer worked. Stuffing a pillow down my throat also had its drawbacks. To make
matters worse, the ENT had discovered I have something called a deviated
septum.

Many of us
have that moment when we realize we’re not the heroes of our own stories, but
rather the sidekicks, or some other supporting roll. I’m that nerd kid everyone
bullied and made fun of, with the glasses, allergies, and yes, deviated septum.
I’m one inhaler away from being the star of a Revenge of the Nerds remake.

The doc
explained that a device would be placed over my head, and I’d have to keep it
on while I slept. Also, that device was worth five thousand dollars, so be
careful with it.

“If it helps,”
he suggested, “your wife can stuff a pillow down your throat until you start
snoring.”

The device
was both lighter and smaller than previous designs, if you can call having a Volkswagen
strapped to your face smaller. At least it wasn’t a ’57 Chevy.

The strap
adjusted to me like a baseball cap, and there were two adhesive suction cups
that stuck it to my forehead. The testing package on the front was roughly the
same size and shape as one of those huge knots the Coyote gets on his head
after his Acme anvil malfunctions and hits him, instead of the Road Runner.
That’s entertainment.

Then a
nasal cannula went on – that’s two little plastic tubes that stick into your
nose. Then, when ready for bed, I had to turn it on and wait for it to do some
little computer testing stuff. Finally a female voice spoke (not my wife). The
electronic voice was probably meant to be soothing, but it sounded more like a
nun wielding a yardstick in a Catholic school, announcing the spankings were
about to commence:

“You may go
to sleep NOW.”

Yeah, sure,
I’ll get right on that. Nothing says sleep like a 5K computer that could start
the robot apocalypse, strapped to your forehead.

Miraculously,
I did indeed get to sleep. Eventually. And that’s when I learned something new:
My forehead sweats when I sleep. When that happens, adhesives glued to my
forehead may come loose. (How was I to know that? I don’t glue stuff to my
forehead. Okay, once.) When that happens, the whole sleep

testing computer
thingy may come loose.

And when that
happens, the computer knows.

It’s safe
to say I was sleeping soundly by then. Or maybe not – again, how do I know? But
certainly it was quiet in the room, because the device actually records all
sounds while it’s operating, so I had to turn the room’s fan off. So, to
review, in addition to a pumpkin on my forehead the room was perfectly quiet
and my subconscious knew that the
computer was listening to me.

And yet I
slept. That is, up until the moment that it decided the device had to be moved
back to where it was supposed to be, instead of the top of my head.

“THE DEVICE
IS LOOSE. REPOSITION NOW. THE DEVICE
IS LOOSE. REPOSITION

NOW. THE DEVICE
IS –“

I was
halfway out the second story bedroom window before becoming fully conscious. I
don’t know why. Maybe I thought the place was on fire. There was a dent in the
ceiling, so apparently I didn’t touch the floor on my way out.

Emily slept
through the whole thing, including me yelling “Open the pod bay doors, HAL!”
which she would have appreciated because she saw that movie.

After
getting off the windowsill and wandering in little circles for a few minutes, I
decided I’d better fix the thing, since they were billing me five hundred bucks
regardless. I repositioned it until the lady Terminator stopped screaming in my
ear, then did what men my age often do in the middle of the night: headed
downstairs for a, shall we say, rest stop.

You can
only imagine the look on the face of our dog, who heard some strange woman
yelling and now saw me stumbling past him with Alien stuck to my face.

But before
I went, I realized the computer lady was listening to every move I made, and
would actual hear me – ahem – tinkle. I never thought of myself as having a shy
bladder, but that shut down my entire urinary system. I didn’t go again for
three days.

Obviously I
survived the incident, although how many days it took off my life I’ll never
know. Maybe I’d have slept through them, anyway. At this writing I’m awaiting
the results, which I suspect will indicate I need to carry a pocket protector
with me at all times. But that’s okay: When the robot apocalypse starts, nerds
might have the best chance of surviving.

And every
time to sleep study computer nun gathers more information, that apocalypse gets
a little closer.